October 9, 2011: International News From the Field

Last week a new neighborhood park opened in New York City called Planters Grove.  The New York Times described it as " Offbeat Corporate Giving: A Park Inspired by Peanuts."  It is a great example of a project that combines corporate philanthropy and volunteers to promote a business while meeting a list of large and small community needs. 

Planters, the snack nut brand owned by Kraft Foods, developed and paid for the new park at the Lillian Wald Houses, a 16-building public housing complex in the East Village.  According to the Times, Planters Grove "has an unmistakably peanut-inspired design, an effect created by the studied placement of poles amid beds of sage, rosemary and thyme" (see an artist rendering of the park).  Planters gains positive publicity while showing how a public-private partnership can benefit low-income neighborhoods.

• It created useful, open space for an area without such amenities, at no cost to government.
• Planters worked with Green City Force, an AmeriCorps program based in Brooklyn that recruits 18- to 24-year-old residents of public housing for intensive training and service opportunities in clean-energy fields.
• The landscape architect, Ken Smith, put a rainwater garden under a boardwalk in the new park, which will reduce runoff and irrigate the plantings.
• The park is filled with several kinds of edible herbs which residents are encouraged to pick and incorporate into their daily cooking.   Smith explained, "There’s a real issue of access to healthy foods, so the ability to have plants that people can actually use is very important."  A neighbor commented that peanuts, too, are a healthy source of protein.
• The herbs also have the payoff of not attracting rats – an early concern of the NYC Housing Authority – as apparently "rats don’t like pungent herbs."

Of course, there are detractors.  A blog posting on The Village Voice Web site, "Parks Go Corporate With Planters Grove. Could Doritos Playground Be Next?", questions the corporate self-promotion.  But the benefits, and the involvement of both AmeriCorps and community volunteers, are evident.